Courtesies in a Time of Drought
by Lys ap Adin
Summary: It's the small courtesies that make life bearable. Hibari, Chrome.


**Title:** Courtesies in a Time of Drought**  
Characters:** Hibari, Chrome**  
Summary:** It's the small courtesies that make life bearable.**  
Notes:** For Cliché Bingo, prompt: "Heat." 646 words.

**

* * *

**

**Courtesies in a Time of Drought**

Kyouya only tolerates Italy at the best of times. The light, the landscape, the buildings, the food, the language, even the _air_--all of them are wrong, subtly or blatantly, and it puts him out of temper to have to deal with them. Sawada knows this, and acknowledges it by not calling him to Italy unless it's absolutely necessary. Kyouya reciprocates his courtesy in turn by answering those rare summonses, and enduring the Mediterranean with as much patience as he can muster.

Even when he is trying, it isn't much.

He suspects that his limited stores of patience only add to his reputation among the other Families; certainly things go much more smoothly with them when they realize that he's become involved in whatever negotiations are at hand. He tolerates this fact because Sawada has the common sense to use that tool, too. Sawada has turned out to have rather creditable fangs after all, even if they are unorthodox.

Nevertheless, all courtesies aside, Kyouya only barely tolerates Italy in the best of times, and the longer he has to spend there, the more annoyed he becomes. It's now four weeks into the Barassi-Cherkesov clusterfuck, with no end in sight, and Kyouya actively hates everything about the Vongola compound, Sawada, and his fellow Guardians. If he didn't know that Sawada needed him here, that the Vongola required a solid face to present to the world, Kyouya would have been back on the first flight to Japan and Namimori days ago. Since that isn't possible, he prowls around the compound when they aren't in negotiations, loathing the Western-style suit he has to wear and everything about his surroundings, and everyone tries to stay out of his way.

May ends and June begins; the days are endlessly hot and sunny and completely _wrong_. Kyouya begins to hope that the deal that Sawada is trying so hard to broker will fall through, regardless of what that might mean for the Vongola, if only it will let him have a real fight, and will let him go home. He plots ways to kill both the Cherkesov bosses and the Barassi bosses--it wouldn't be impossible, especially if he can get them all into the same room at the same time--just so that things will end.

Before he can lay his plans out for Sawada, Chrome comes to him. It is evening and Kyouya paces the fine Western quarters that are his, feeling like he's been trapped in a cage. When she lets herself in, he sincerely hopes that it's because Mukuro has taken one of his fey moods and wants a fight.

"No," Chrome says, evenly, when he asks. "Mukuro-sama isn't here just now."

Kyouya snarls at her, frustrated. "Then what do you want?"

"I thought of something that might improve your mood," she says, still in that soft, even voice. Then her mouth changes, curves. "As much as anything can." She lifts a hand and change ripples out from it--carpet becomes tatami, furniture changes shape or disappears, the walls change to paper and wood, and the paintings become pieces of calligraphy.

And the outside wall holds a door, now, one that opens onto a porch and a garden, and rain drumming down, steady as a heartbeat.

She gets even the air right, wet with damp and heat and the smell of the garden hanging in it. Kyouya draws in a lungful of it, exhales, and turns away from her, moving to stand in the door and look at the illusion-garden and its rain. "Yes," he says, after a moment, because this deserves graciousness. "It does, rather."

"You're welcome," she says, and leaves him.

The illusion remains in place, even after she goes. Kyouya watches the rain for a long time, and decides that he can suffer Italy, and the Cherkesov and Barassi, for a little longer after all.

**- end -**

Comments are a thing of delight and joy forever!


End file.
